She nodded. Trevor walked to the opposite side of the room to see about Harriet. She stopped rocking and lifted a tear-streaked face to him. “Julian?” she asked, her voice choked with tears.
“He has gone for assistance,” Trevor said softly. “Please allow me to sit with you while we await his return.”
The hesitant way she reached for his hand made Trevor realize Meredith was right. Poor Harriet was on the verge of total hysteria.
Fortunately, help arrived very shortly. A bevy of males entered the room noisily. Several burly servants accompanied Wingate, along with a somberly dressed gray-haired gentleman whom he identified as the local magistrate.
Hawkins’s body was removed. Once it was gone, Elizabeth lifted herself off Jason’s lap and practically fell into Harriet’s arms. The two sisters hugged each other fiercely, crying like young girls. Jason remained at Elizabeth’s side, patting her shoulder awkwardly and hovering protectively.
Trevor turned to retrieve Meredith, wanting nothing more than to gather his wife in his arms and get her safely home. Yet as his gaze settled on the far wall, he received a most unpleasant shock. The marquess’s heart jolted as bands of panic tightened around his chest until he could barely breathe.
Meredith was no longer in the room. She was gone.
Twenty
Fortunately, the duke’s butler was crossing the foyer when the marquess came charging though the mansion’s front doors, frantically shouting Meredith’s name. The servant calmly informed him his wife had only just arrived and was in her rooms. Without waiting to hear anything else, a much relieved Trevor thundered up the stairs.
The bedchamber was in complete disarray as he burst inside. Gowns, walking dresses, slips, corsets, chemises, gloves, hats, stockings were all piled haphazardly on the bed. He stared at them in surprise, telling himself not to jump to any unfounded conclusions.
Meredith emerged from the sitting room, her arms ladened with a bundle of garments. She froze the moment she saw him, dropping a gown and some fluffy white underthings.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. Bending low, Meredith gathered up the fallen garments and pressed them close to her chest. “I had hoped to be finished with all of this before you returned.”
“What are you doing?”
“Packing.” She dropped the clothes she held in her arms on the bed and turned to the armoire for more. “I promise to be gone by morning.”
Trevor’s mouth went dry. The fear he had experienced upon learning Meredith was in danger was a mere ripple compared to the wave of terror that now washed through him.
“You are leaving me?”
She would not answer, nor would she meet his eyes. She just kept bringing out more and more garments and tossing them on the bed with frantic, jerking motions. Several strands of hair had escaped from her coiffeur and were dangling against the side of her neck. The gown she wore was wrinkled and slightly disheveled from her efforts.
He stepped directly in her path, blocking her route to the armoire. She shifted left, trying to go around him. Trevor countered to his right, effectively impeding her. She groaned and tried again, but again he prevented her progress.
“I know you must hate me.” She paused, then finally lifted her head. Her eyes were dull and sad, her breathing quick and shallow. “I do not blame you for these feelings, yet I cannot stay and be reminded of all the grief I have wrought upon you. ’Tis too much for me to bear.”
“Meredith, please. What are you saying?”
“What can I say? You were there. You heard it, too, every horrible, ugly word of truth.” He reached for her, but she evaded his hands. “Me, Trevor! It was me Hawkins meant to kill that afternoon at the duchess’s party. Not Lavinia. By all rights ’tis I who should be dead, not her.”
Just the mention of Meredith’s death brought a hot, jabbing ache squarely to his heart. Was that truly what she believed? “I forbid you to speak such rubbish.”
“Why? ’Tis the truth.”
This time she succeeded in stepping around him to fling another garment on the bed. Tears leaked silently from her eyes. Trevor wanted only to gather her close in his arms and ease her pain, but the note of hysteria in her voice bade him to be cautious.
“Lavinia was wearing my shawl that afternoon at the duchess’s party,” Meredith continued in a low, quivering voice. “Hawkins had come to the estate with one purpose in mind, to punish me for rejecting his employer’s proposal of marriage. When he saw from a distance a woman wearing the shawl he knew I favored, he attacked.”
“That is hardly your fault,” Trevor said quietly.
“You don’t understand, I made her wear the shawl!”
Trevor was momentarily shocked into silence. He reached again for her, but Meredith shook her head and backed away.
“It was not very cool that afternoon, but Lavinia had been shivering. I was concerned about her health, and the baby’s—” Meredith’s face suddenly crumpled. “The unborn infant! I had forgotten about that small, precious life. Oh, how can you even bear to be in the same room with me?”
There was no mistaking the agony on her face. He could almost feel the heavy weight of her torment, and it increased the grief in his own heart until it was almost unbearable. “How can you blame yourself?”
